


Aut Viam Inveniam Aut Faciam

by knitmeapony



Category: Jeremiah (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitmeapony/pseuds/knitmeapony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I will either find a way or make one."  It took Markus twenty years to learn Latin. Twenty years, five books, three relationships, two homes, and an increasingly complicated life.  A series of vignettes in roughly chronological order -- from the day the Big Death came Thunder Mountain to the day Markus finally moved out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Persons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lizardbeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/gifts).



> This is the year! I adore Markus as much as you do, and I'm delighted to write a story about him. Just a few notes for you:
> 
> \- Pairings: Markus/Meaghan, Markus/Erin, Markus/Jeremiah, Erin/Jeremiah, Markus/Erin/Jeremiah. Twenty years is a long time.  
> \- Text in italics is Markus's journal.  
> \- I am deeply grateful to the thrift store for having lots of textbooks, and Wikipedia for having excessive information about verb conjugations. Some factual information in Markus's journal entries was lifted directly from that most holy of virtual resources.  
> \- This went out of control and there was no time for one final beta. Please forgive the misspellings and grammar tweaks -- I am aware of the irony.

Everyone needs something to keep them busy, even when they're too busy for words.

Markus had been the leader since the beginning, the oldest of them by months and years and the smartest of them by far.  He'd set everyone, even the youngest, to doing things that were both mindless and useful, cataloging the silverware, the food, the clothes.  They needed something soothing after burning all the bodies, they needed to feel useful, they needed to keep themselves from thinking about it all too hard.

Mindless for him was a different animal, though, and he set himself to something a little more complicated, going through the library, re-cataloging everything on paper, organizing them in order of priority -- things he had to read, things he ought to read, things he should read some day.  Setting aside a few things for fun and for the children.

It would have gone a lot more quickly if he hadn't stopped on every other book, turned them over and over in his hands.  He was looking for his own distraction. There had to be something here he'd never touched before, some subject that wouldn't remind him of his mother, wouldn't make him think of his father.

He finally found it, buried deep in one of the classrooms.  He smoothed his hands over the cover, cracked the spine open himself for the first time.

It was perfect.  He opened the journal he'd begun to keep, turned the page deliberately, and began.

\-----

 _Latin verbs have the following properties: three persons, two numbers, two aspects, six tenses, three finite moods, four non-finite forms, and two voices.  There are four (sometimes five) verb conjugations.  In contrast, English verbs have three persons, two numbers, and nineteen tenses.  There is one primary verb conjugation along with a rather startling collection of irregular verbs, each unique._

 _These facts have led me to two conclusions:  
1) that there may be a correlation between complex language and cultural death by hubris, and  
2) this ought to keep me busy for a while._

 **First Person**

 _Grammatical person, in linguistics, is a contextual reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. First person is the grammatical category of forms that designate a speaker or writer referring to himself or herself. Sometimes I wonder if this is the only tense I should bother to learn.  We knew each other before this all happened, but most of us stayed with our families, never really had friends.  So now we spend our time talking about ourselves to avoid talking about what's happening outside. It's been nine days, twelve hours, twenty-two minutes since the last one died.  A good sign._

One of the remarkable things about the children in Thunder Mountain was that none of them cried.  Not even the youngest of them, not even when they were hauling bodies, setting fires, even at night, when they all curled together in the cafeteria, there were no sounds of sniffling, no quiet wails.

Markus was reasonably sure that it was because this was a military installation, because the smallest of the small weren't even allowed inside.  The youngest of them was almost seven, long past the point where a certain stolid reserve was taught to the children of soldiers.  He was grateful for that - he was holding on by the barest of threads some days himself - but he couldn't deny that it was a little disturbing.

There were no tears, but there were flares of anger, of frustration, of misery.  He clenched his jaw and watched and waited, diverted and shifted the teams, kept the worst of them apart and the best of them together.  For now, he would hardly let himself acknowledge them as people -- you didn't know if someone else was going to get sick or die or worse.  He knew losing another one would break him, and he couldn't let himself be the first person to break.

First person.  Right.  He was studying.  He turned his eyes back down and took a breath.   _Sum, I am.  Remaneo, I remain._  He rubbed his eyes and was surprised to find his hand came away wet.  That would be why his eyes were burning, he supposed.  

"Markus?"  

The boy at the door -- Lee, he forced himself to acknowledge, Simon's friend-- had an armload of books and papers. Markus cleared his throat, got up from his seat, and managed to make it to his bookshelf without letting the brief weakness be seen.  "What can I do for you?"  He swiped his eyes surreptitiously before turning to face his visitor.

"I have some thoughts about this place.  The security is good, but no one is paying attention to it.  We don't know who's still out there, or what they might want from us, and..."

Markus closed the book regretfully and nodded.  "I've got the time.  Come in."

 **Second Person**

 _Second person designates  a speaker or writer referring to the direct person addressed.  It is one of the most common forms for inquisitive statements.  For the first time in weeks, I employed the second person without giving an order.  I didn't want to learn anything about the woman behind the wall until I was sure she was going to survive. Her name is Meaghan. She is remarkable._

When he found her, she was nearly dead.  They had some food and water to spare, at least for now, and he started bringing things down to her.  No matter what she said, though, he didn't respond.  Not for a week, not until her croaking gratitude became a clearer tone, until she half-smiled when she saw him enter the room.

"You've never told me your name," she offered, waiting patiently as the lights turned from green to red, until the puff of air indicated she could take out what he'd given her -- MREs, water, a book.

"No," he agreed, eyeing her through the glass carefully.  "But I know yours."  He'd found her files still on paper.  She'd been brought in so late in the game that no one had time to put her into the computer yet.  "You're Meaghan, right?"

She nodded an agreement, examining the spine of the book he'd brought before taking the food.  It was a sign, to him, that it was safe to start to know her.  Anyone who prioritizes books before food wasn't going to starve.

"You're Meaghan Rose Lee.  You're twenty-eight years old.  You're from way up north."  He hesitated, and she glanced up at him, keen eyes scanning his face.  "You're infected.  You're not dead."

"So they tell me."  She'd brought a chair over to the window and she sat in it now, opening her meal with careful fingers.  "So will you tell me your name?"   She folded back the foil placket and glanced up at him.  "Or at least explain what happened here?"

He hesitated, but it had been so long since he'd had someone to talk to -- someone who wasn't leaning on him, relying on him, who didn't look at him with two-thirds reverence and one-third awe -- that he couldn't help himself.  "Markus."  He breathed in the recycled air and found himself a seat, trying to stay casual.  "You know how it started, at least."

He told her everything he knew, from the way the virus worked to the way the world ended, how they'd lost contact with base after base, city after city. He told her about the last days, his mother, his father, about how fast the virus had whipped through the base.

At first, she asked questions, getting details as he went, absorbing it all. But after the first hour she was only listening, and after the second hour he wasn't sure he knew how to stop. Words tumbled out of him, painful and raw, and after the third hour he wasn't sure what he was saying, anymore. He just kept talking, telling her every detail, until his voice gave out and he finally realized he'd been crying.

He looked up at last, the first pricks of humiliation beginning to surface on his skin, when he saw the look on her face.

"I didn't know," she said, quietly. "I thought they might've just left the base, left me to die. I should've known something..." She'd been crying herself, and she lifted a shaky hand to her chin to wipe away tears. "Thank you for telling me, Markus."

He nodded and leaned back in his seat. "You made it easy."

She almost smiled, and shook her head. "It wasn't me. You are remarkable."

 **Third Person**

 _Third person is the most versatile of grammatical persons.  It allows for reference to persons who are not the addresser nor addressee, as well as concepts and inanimate objects.  Animal, vegetable, or mineral.  It can be easy to slip from referring to people in the third person to_ things _in the third person. I must remember that they take their cues from me, and a dry inhumanity won't keep any of us sane._

The talk with Meaghan changed him. He made a point, after that, of letting them see him tired. That, in turn, made it easier to let them see him smile. He let himself have a good day, even laugh at a handful of jokes. When he ate in the cafeteria, people started stepping into his space, and soon he was no longer alone.

He had Lee of course, who was on a single-minded mission to map the base. He knew every corner and every system, keeping all those details in his head so that they could all be safe. He had Erin, who had other ideas about safety and who knew him best out of everyone, who he felt as if he'd known since long before it had all happened. Andrew, who seemed to want to be there to keep an eye on everyone, who'd never trusted anyone before the Death and sure as hell wasn't inclined to now.

There was a whole council of them -- Simon, Mia, Callie, Joachim, Thomas -- and they all seemed to take his leadership as a simple fact, the way the sun rose in the east and set in the west. They'd been living on his easy confidence and the turning of the calendar, on faith that he had some kind of plan.

He hadn't had one, not in those first days, but he let them believe.

For weeks, though, for almost months, he'd been sitting in that quiet room with Meaghan, talking until his voice gave out all over again. He'd brought reams and reams of paper, files, notes, inventory. He'd brought ideas, and she'd brought a dry wit and a pragmatic mind, and together they'd cobbled something together that almost seemed to work. And yesterday he'd promised her that he'd show the council what he -- and Meaghan -- had worked out.

He'd wanted today to seem like any other day, but they all kept looking at the notebook he had under his plate. So much for subtlety; everyone inside the mountain was finely keyed to routine, and any break in it made rumors race through the place. It didn't help, either, that he wasn't hungry. He'd been picking at the meal, letting Erin steal the carrots off his plate.

Andrew moved to get up, and Markus knew it was now or never.

"Don't go yet," he said. "I want to talk to you. To all of you." He didn't even have to raise his voice -- he looked up from his plate and they were all watching him, wary and hopeful by turns.

"I've been putting some things down on paper. I thought we should plan for the winter, at least, and for the long-term." He pulled out the notebook. "It's going to sound crazy, but I think we should know what happens in ten years, and in twenty."

"It doesn't sound crazy." It didn't matter who said it; they were all agreed. Markus felt his shoulders relax down an inch. If he could convince them, the rest of the kids would follow.


	2. Numbers

_Most languages of the world have a way to express differences of number. Many contrast between singular and plural, but there are exceptions. I think I like one idea best -- there is a singular, and group, and a group of individuals. It isn't safe some times to view people as a seamless whole. It would be nice to have a way to remind myself that there is no_ them _, there is only_ all of them _,_ _and_ each of them _._

 **Singular**

 _Singular is neither lonely nor selfish, and it is important for me to remember that. It is valid, and it is necessary. It is something that I can't shy away from, no matter how many worried looks I get from Meaghan, no matter how many times Lee tries to convince me to share every detail._

Their passwords were twenty-one digit strings of randomly generated alphanumeric characters.  

Markus traced the letters on the screen.  It'd taken months to crack his father's password by brute force; half the military intelligence personnel he'd managed to guess and the rest had been unlocked weeks ago. The security was good, it was fine, but Markus was wildly proud that his father had beaten them all. And his mother -- she had the best security he'd ever seen.

When his father's password had finally been cracked, he'd known immediately it was her doing. He could hear her laughing, teasing his father. _Markus14 is a terrible password. Anyone could guess it. Especially Markus._ They always worried about him getting into their work. It was for their own good, they both said. That was probably one of the reasons why he'd dragged his feet once their directories were cracked.

He had wanted to go through his parent's files personally . There was more than enough data to go around -- so much that even Lee hadn't protested the plan -- and Markus had promised to get to it quickly and share the results once he did. But no matter how many times he sat down to try to type in the password -- steeling himself, saying _this time, really this time_ \-- he could only get to the tenth character. First he'd managed to convince himself there was no point in cracking his father's files without his mother's. Now, he had no excuse.

Everyone else had dealt with the death of their families long ago. Someone had organized a memorial service three months past, and they'd lain everyone to rest in their hearts as well as outside. The few people from the outside that they'd let in were even more pragmatic about it. Everyone was moving on.

Everyone but Markus. He'd seen them go, he had no reason to hold on to hope. The fact that their accounts were still untouched gave him an odd sort of attitude to it all, though. He couldn't seem to steel himself enough.

"You're going to have to do it eventually." He'd brought his laptop in to the containment space so he could talk it through with Meaghan; she'd been endlessly kind and patient. "Markus. Waiting doesn't bring anyone back." It was almost disconcerting that she always knew just what to say.

He lifted his head and nodded, feeling something hollow in his stomach. "I can't help but think that maybe they should stay closed, like a grave or something."

She leaned against the edge of the window, watching him. "It's not just you, you realize. That isn't an inheritance. You don't get to decide." She pressed on, though she could see him getting angry. "I know you loved your parents, and I know they didn't leave much else behind. But I need that information, too. So do they." She jerked her chin towards the door.

"No." He could feel something bubbling up in him. Anger, real anger, for the first time in a year. "No. This isn't yours. It's not for you. This is _mine_. They're mine." Maybe that was it. Maybe he just wanted this to be his alone. When it was unlocked, he'd have to share the information with everyone. No one else had to share their families, not completely, not intimately. His father would have copies of the books he listened to as he worked. His mother would have family photographs. All of it wasn't meant for sharing. He slapped the laptop shut. "I have to go."

"Markus," she shifted, putting one hand on the glass. "There's no way of knowing what your mother knew about me. You might be able to let me out." He headed for the door, ignoring her voice that was getting quieter and quieter. "Markus, _please_."

His jaw flexed as he considered his options. "I'll be back tomorrow," he said, finally, and fled the room.

Nine days later, there was an emergency, and he had no choice. But for those nine days, he had his family with him every time he was alone.

 **  
Plural**

 _Plural is not a burden, and deeper plurality is not a deeper burden. We are_ we _, and no matter what Lee says, I am determined to keep us whole and together. At least we both agree that we've gotten as plural as we can get -- no more people should be let into the mountain, not unless they can carry their weight and we have weight that needs to be carried. It's an ugly thing, to think that people will come asking for help and we'll say no, but someone once said that no man can be all things to all people. It would be nice if we could keep that in mind._

Lee was angry with him again. Not that it was a surprise, not that he was any better on days when he was merely indifferent.

Their relationship was an odd one. Two years had settled them into a comfortable routine: Lee made demands, Markus protested, Lee did it anyway and they dealt with the consequences. They'd each been right and wrong in their turns, things had turned out well and ill, and they'd found a level of trust with each other that no one could break.

Today, though, something was wrong. They could both feel it in the air. There were secrets they were keeping. Lee'd been fiddling with the radio lately -- not that there was anyone to contact, but he insisted they keep the room running. Markus had been going to see Meaghan more and more.

"Fine." Lee took Markus's brush-off with his usual lack of grace. "There's one more thing."

Markus lifted an eyebrow and waited.

"It's about Erin. You need to stop being so obvious."

"Obvious about what?"

Lee made a face and leaned in, elbows on the table. "Everyone knows the two of you are... together. It's making people talk whenever you give her something to do."

"We're _not_ together. She's a good friend." Markus leaned back in his chair. "If you want proof? Tell anyone who asks there's someone else." Lee opened his mouth but Markus held up a hand, cutting him off. "No, I won't tell you who. No, you don't get to follow me to figure it out. But there is someone very important to me." He'd meant for it to be an excuse, but it was starting to feel like it wasn't.

"There aren't a whole lot of people it could be."

Markus shuffled through his options. Not Mia. Not Callie. Not Erin. No one younger than fifteen. No one already attached. There may not _be_ a second option, damn and double damn. He was about to change his mind, to tell Lee not to say a word, and then he realized.

"There's someone I love. And you'll never guess who." Someone Lee had never seen. Someone Markus had never touched. And maybe the only person he could see himself becoming a _we_ with. He stood up and gathered his things, tucking everything in it's proper place in his backpack -- the notebooks, the laptop, the plans. He flipped past his Latin textbook and winced guiltily. He hadn't touched it in weeks. "I have some things to do. We can talk again later."

"We sure as hell will."

Markus smiled to himself, biting back the words. _There is no we, Lee. Not with you, not with Erin. Only with Meaghan._


	3. Aspects

_The grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in a given action, event, or state (in a given situation). The distinction here is not in the situation itself, but in the speaker's portrayal of it._ _I try to be careful and be aware of the way I portray things, try to be sure that I am not an unreliable narrator. Still, I can never quite manage to keep myself completely objective. Some things require judgment as you see them -- some allow for better judgement with hindsight. I try to be kind to myself when I confuse the latter with the former._

 **Perfective**

 _Essentially, the perfective aspect looks at an event as a complete action. What is, is. What was, was. It will happen, and then not again. Sometimes, I think we've lived our whole lives this way. Other times, I believe that it's all a myth._

Erin had this habit, one that Markus found endlessly endearing. She would pick up hobbies, swearing this time she'd stick with them, and no more than halfway through her second project she'd lose interest again. Lee found it irritating -- a waste of resources, a waste of space -- but there was little Markus liked more than visiting her room, seeing it stuffed full of half-finished paintings, knitting still on the needles, lopsided macrame and books all sitting propped open, one stacked on another.

He knocked on the edge of the doorway-- she almost never had her door closed -- and when she looked up and smiled he stepped inside. "Merry Christmas," he said, and the easy smile he got in return was enough of a present.

"You too, Markus. Don't tell me you're actually taking the day off."

"No." Their grins matched, ear to ear. "But I wanted to bring you something." He pulled a box out from behind his back. It was something from the old world, all shiny cardboard and plastic windows, and her eyes lit up a little as she crossed the room to examine it. "The last salvage party we sent out found a bookstore."

"Juggling for beginners." She took the box and examined the contents through their windows -- scarves neatly folded, balls lined up in a little row.

"I was pretty sure you hadn't tried it yet."

She shook her head. "Not yet, nope. I was just thinking I needed something new." She smoothed the dust off the edge of the box and pulled it close, almost hugging it to her. "Thank you."

"I'm just sorry I couldn't find any wrapping paper."

She laughed. "Neither could I, but I have something for you, too. I went out _with_ that salvage party, remember?" She reached under her bed and pulled out a heavy, hardcover book. _Intermediate Latin_.

It was his turn to light up, and he opened it immediately to the table of contents. New vocabulary, new conjugations. This ought to keep him busy for years. "How did you know?"

"I saw you start the old book from the beginning again. I thought about getting you _Beginning Greek_ , but I know you like to finish things."

"I do." He nodded, meditatively. "Maybe I will take the day off."

She couldn't help herself - she reached out and wrapped her arms around him, hoping he would allow this one little indulgence. When he hugged her back, she closed her eyes and all but glowed.

 **  
Imperfective**

 _The imperfective aspect views an event as the process of unfolding or a repeated or habitual event. Let the circle be unbroken, let the gyre spin and the wheel turn. It's certainly the aspect of the poet. It's hard to remember what it was like, having delicate people around, poets and artists and linguists._

Jeremiah came into his life like a storm and never really left. He drove through the gate, panicked security, pissed of Lee, dropped terrible news and then shouted down the hallways in his ratty tuxedo shirt and broken down boots.. Markus would've been well within his rights to throw him out, shut the door, and tell him to never return.

He couldn't bring himself to do it, though. It wasn't just Simon's word -- however posthumous -- that he'd be a good recruit. It was that shouting match. It was the way Jeremiah pushed him, hard, out of his fear and into action.

It kept him up for a whole night, pacing in bare feet, to the point where he found himself traveling down the hallway, waking him up. And there was this moment...

But what mattered then was saving lives. What mattered was doing something real.

Against all advice, he went himself, the third man on a two-man team. And at the end of the fight, he couldn't help but feel alive.

Other people noticed. The next week, he got comments from half the people he met. Even the ones who knew him best couldn't help but tell him that he looked alive, that he was thinking sharper, moving faster, laughing easier. He hadn't realized what he'd been slipping into until Jeremiah and Kurdy came, until they stirred him out of it.

Kurdy was a good man, maybe even a great one, but it was Jeremiah that Markus looked forward to returning.

He found himself craving the stories, the way that Jeremiah could come back and casually drop the names of lives he'd saved, of towns where he'd made a difference, places that had food now, or water, or a better leader in place. Sometimes he paid more attention to those stories than to the news that he'd actually asked for. It was dangerous.

Every time he swore it off, he made himself promise to not be a hero, to just be a leader. But it didn't take long for that promise to wear thin.

The more Jeremiah spoke, that dry and drawling tone, that casual vulgarity, the more romantic Markus found himself feeling. The old sort of romantic, the kind tragedies were made of: a sense of something greater, of drawn swords and a swirl of lace, He found himself revisiting old novels, ones he hadn't read since he was young. _The Three Musketeers._ _The Scarlet Pimpernel_. _Don Quixote_.

Between reading, he dutifully wrote down every important story in his journal. Perhaps someone would publish it as a novel some day -- _The Continuing Adventures of Jeremiah and his scribe, Markus_. Or maybe _The Due Patience of Markus Alexander._ Maybe someone would translate it, the way he was translating the _Odyssey_ \-- first one word at a time, then one phrase, then one line.

Maybe he would. Maybe he should -- stories this bold deserved a classical language, right?

Right. He deliberately turned another page over in his journal and began.


	4. Tenses

_Tense places temporal references along a conceptual timeline. I find that phrasing inherently funny. All timelines are conceptual._

 **  
Present**

 _Present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. The present may be used to express action in the present, a current state of being, an occurrence in the future, or an action that started in the past and continues. Everything is really in the present tense. We let our past and our future leak in._

Even if there hadn't been Meaghan, he wouldn't have let himself go. No matter the need, no matter the desire, he wouldn't have let himself find solace with someone. He was far too aware that his position made him alone and lonely, at least for now.

They'd all been treating their eighteenth birthdays with solemnity. They all knew it wasn't a real milestone, that it was puberty that'd made everyone vulnerable, but there was something about crossing the threshold that required ceremony. He'd crossed it first, and he'd spent the day alone. After that, he made sure no one else had that kind of day. (Especially not with whiskey and wine.)

The day after his birthday, he made sure to tell everyone what it was like. It was the same as yesterday. It was just today. It wasn't some peculiar tomorrow. It wasn't something terrible.

They believed the lies. They lived the way most people had to -- today, and then today. Present tense.

They were happier for it, all of them who could manage. The ones who couldn't -- Lee and Simon, Bryan and Erin, Markus himself, they kept their heads down and just wouldn't think about it.

Another birthday, and another, and another again. Five were eighteen. Then ten. Then twenty. Eventually, it became just another day for everyone. Even Erin let the day come and go and didn't brood too much or too long. There was a cake.

When Markus turned twenty-one, they hardly even blinked. There wasn't a cake, this time, but there was a party. There was a little music -- courtesy of Erin -- and there was even a gift. _Excelability in Advanced Latin_ , dug out of a university campus up in Seattle, passed hand to hand and only a little worse for the wear. It was as touched as he'd been in ages, and for a moment, with the music and conversation washing over him, fingers tracing whole piles of new words to learn, he was here. Just _here_ , right now, today.

Seven years, it'd been, and he was finally learning to live somewhere beyond the past.

 **  
Imperfect**

 _The imperfect, or past imperfective, indicates something that happened in the past but was incomplete, continuous, habitual, or coincident with another action. It's a miserable metaphor for anyone's life. It's perfect for mine._

He didn't realize until he returned to Thunder Mountain how terrible Meaghan's choice of death had been. He wanted to just mourn, to sit there with his hands over his face behind a locked door. But he was a leader -- he was _the_ leader -- and he didn't have the time. First and foremost, he had to make arrangements to find and destroy her body. And even worse, _he_ had to make arrangements for it all. It'd been Lee's plan, Kurdy's implementation, but in the end he had to clean it all up.

What would've happened if her infected body had washed up on a shore somewhere? What if some well-meaning guy had picked it up to bury it, and he'd been twenty-five or fifteen or hell, maybe even ten. What if the body had carried the disease?

He'd let her have her time. He'd let her choose her way. But now he had to finish what she began.

It felt like it'd always been this way, again and again and again. He finished what his father began, and then he finished what Meaghan began. He finished what Lee had broken. He finished what Jeremiah had stirred up.

It was a pattern, and it exhausted him. He always liked fixing things, putting them back together, but sometimes he wished people didn't bring him every broken part to repair.

Especially now.

He wanted to send someone else out, but he couldn't. He couldn't ask other people to risk their lives for this, for what needed to be done.

He couldn't even tell them it had to be done in the first place.

Nobody questioned when he said he needed a little time. They let him go for a day, take a Rover and take off.

He spent a whole day and most of the night dredging the pool, diving over and over, sweeping with a net, until he finally found her.

He spent two hours sitting there, wrapped in an environmental suit and holding her in his arms.

He spent ten hours setting a fire, making sure that it burned hotter and hotter, until she was finally ash, blowing away.

And if, when he came home, he was shaking and withdrawn, well, it was actually a relief to know that Markus Alexander, of all people, wasn't cold and perfect. They gave him his time.

 **  
Future**

 _The future tense is used for anything that hasn't happened yet, but is expected to happen in the future. Anticipation is a drug best left to those with easy lives._

Valhalla Sector may have been the words that were on everyone's lips, but there was always another base, and another. Markus could draw the map with his eyes closed, these days, sketch every network that spread across the country. First the public bases, the ones on everyone's maps. Then the hidden ones, places with only one door above ground and only named by their coordinates.

There was always another problem, another group to encounter, and that was just in the United States. The border between here and Canada is long, and it's very easy to cross on foot.

And once you went above it, Markus was flying blind.

He heard stories, of course, and he tried to listen to every one, to plan for what was coming ahead, but without Meaghan's council he was adrift. He couldn't sort things through without someone to talk to, and he couldn't talk to any of his people, not the way he had with her.

Everyone was good to him, and he made do as he could. But he couldn't help but feel that somewhere down the road, he was going to have to move on -- for the security of the base as much as for his own sanity.

Nothing made him more miserable. Nothing made him so very afraid.

No matter her flaws and her insecurities, Meaghan was everything to him, the perfect sounding board and even better, the perfect advisor. No one person would ever take her place. Opening up to just _one_ had been hard. Opening up to more was a future he barely wanted to contemplate.

 **  
Perfect**

 _The perfect can refer to events in the past that have been finished (such as “He has already eaten dinner”) as well as events that are ongoing (such as “He has been working on this novel for a year”) or events that are to continue into the present (“He has composed operas for twenty years”); all are characterized by continued relevance to the speaker at the time of speaking._

Relevance weighed on his mind, endlessly. What was Thunder Mountain doing? What were they to the outside world? He'd told that story about the church and the renaissance so many times now he was sure everyone was tired of it -- he always thought that maybe just _one more time_ and even _he'd_ believe it.

He had faith in the mountain, he had faith in all her personnel. The one person he rarely had faith in was himself. She'd always been good for that, bolstering him when he stumbled.

By now, with everything he'd done and everything he'd overcome, he always thought that his spine should've been long since strengthened. But Meaghan had liked to remind him that it was a sign he was a good man that he wasn't overconfident.

"Markus, you with me?" Jeremiah had been talking this whole time, and Markus straightened in his chair, startled out of his reverie.

"Sorry, not really. Can I ask you a question?"

"Is this one of those questions that doesn't really have an answer?"

"Yes."

"How did I know?" He indicated Markus should go ahead, though.

"How do you know when you see something -- how do you know it's right for us to intervene? What's just an internal matter, and what's relevant to us? More to the point, how do you know when we're going to matter? Everything can be solved with enough guns, with the hands to hold them, but you don't sic us on every problem."

"I don't know." Jeremiah's forehead creased as he considered that. "I just know. It's a feeling you get in your gut, I guess."

"I've never been one to go on my gut. I suppose it's out of practice."

"So practice." Such a simple idea, just like that. "When was the last time you left Thunder Mountain? By choice, I mean."

"I can't remember."

"So get out. Meet some people. Trust your gut. The bigger your history, the louder it gets. Trust me."

Markus nodded, considering that carefully. "Maybe I will. Thanks."

 **  
Pluperfect**

 _Pluperfect is a true pain in the ass. It refers to an event which takes place before another event and was still relevant at the time of the later event. Because that second, subsequent event is itself a past event and the past tense is used to refer to it, the pluperfect is needed to make it clear that the first event has taken place even earlier in the past._   
_I thought at first it was an indication the Romans were crazy, until I realized English has this tense, too,_

What's past is prologue, they like to say. It was over and done, and written. But that was never really true, was it? The past always informs you. It _forms_ you. That was why Markus wasn't fool enough to go out on his own, and certainly not enough to go out with his own name. Lee had volunteered to go out with him at first, but Erin had put her foot down. She had a back-up logistics officer that was nearly as good as she was; Lee had no such backup.

So she'd gassed up a truck and they'd headed out.

"Do you know the last time I did this?" He didn't wait for an answer from her, just pressed on, eyes out the windshield. "The first week Jeremiah came. Do you remember? We threw dynamite at a bunch of skinheads."

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "I remember. I think my favorite part of that was the look on Lee's face when you told him you were taking a bag of his precious stash."

He smiled and shot her a little look out of the corner of his eye. "What do you think he was really appalled most about? The dynamite? The fact that I was going alone with a couple of strangers? The fact that I listened to the strangers in the first place?"

"All of the above. I practically had to give him oxygen while you were gone, you know." She slowed the truck just enough to take a curve safely. "I'm glad this trip was a little better planned than 'throw explosions and hope for the best'."

His smile bloomed into a grin. "You know, I really only have one regret about all that, that whole first week."

"Yeah?"

"The third man's a lonely position. I should've taken a partner out with me."

She actually shot him a look, half amused and half unreadable. "No sense talking about might-have-beens."

"Sometimes I like to think what would've changed if I just made a decision that was just a little different."

"That would've changed things?"

"You tell me." He rested his elbow in the window well. "If you'd have known how much I trusted you, back then, what would've been different?"

She hesitated. "I don't know."

"It's worth thinking about, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I guess it might be."

 **  
Future Perfect**

 _  
The future perfect is used to describe an event that is expected or planned to happen before another event in the future. It is a grammatical combination of the future tense, or other marking of future time, and the perfect, itself a combination of tense and aspect. It's also an oxymoron._

He knew Jeremiah would come back. Somehow, no matter how much hell he went through, he always came back. There'd always be a debriefing session, another chance to pry stories out of him. Sometimes Kurdy was there, sometimes Smith, sometimes Rachel, and always the stories were more complete when he went out with a partner. But the times when he was alone, when he came in still in his coat and perched on the table, those were the times Markus looked forward to like no other.

No matter how many times and ways he and Erin would fight, at the end of the day she would bring him dinner and they would talk over the day. The way the base was running, the successes and the failures. They were both adult enough to keep business business, even when things were bad or frustrating or terrible. Things actually went better when there was tension between them -- everything was clipped and businesslike. But when she was happy, those were the times he liked best. She'd laugh and tell him stories that made her laugh, and sometimes he didn't have to hear a word to enjoy them.

Once, only once, it all came together. He should've known it'd happen once; Erin had just brought him his meal when Jeremiah breezed in and flopped down in the best chair in the office without so much as a hello.

"I can go," Erin said, "if you need to debrief."

"No, stay," Markus said, and she flashed him a smile.

"Then get out of my chair, Jeremiah." She toed his ankle and he got up with a groan but no other protest, shifting over for her. Markus hid a smile and peeled back the lid from his food.

"Fine, then I'm going first." Jeremiah leaned in and stole half of the roll from Markus's plate and started in without so much as a breath. He managed to eat and talk with some kind of peculiar dignity.

Every time Markus had a question, Erin was right there asking the same one before he could get his mouth open. By the time they switched to Erin's report, Jeremiah was settled in with no intent of leaving and pestering her with his own curiosity.

Markus sat back in his chair and watched them with some kind of odd satisfaction. He hadn't realized it'd happened, but somewhere along the way things had fallen into place.

It was long past the usual lights-out; the base was quiet and even the patrols slipped by without a sound. All the ugliness had slid by and left them here, filling up the office with light and noise.

Erin caught his look and gave him a curious look; he didn't have to say a word to indicate it was nothing, and that she should go on talking.

One of these days he'd have to mention they'd become a family -- but he had a feeling they'd worked it out long before he had.


	5. Finite Moods

_Moods indicate modality. Modality is a conditional idea. According to X, it is Y that Z is true. The fact that English does not have any real complex modality built into it's grammar is why it takes so long for anyone to say anything of value. Including -- and especially -- me. High verbal, I'm told._

 **  
Indicative**

 _Indicative is positive, common, and factual. It reminds me of someone._

Erin was rarely upset; the fact that she was on edge and snappish worried Markus. It took him a few hours to make time to corner her.

She'd gotten another message from her sister, and that made perfect sense. Nothing could turn Erin to a wreck so perfectly as her sister. "She says the whole town is being held hostage," she told Markus. "They say he's got a nuclear bomb, that once you come in you're not allowed to leave again. You stay there, you work on their farm, you do what you're told. I don't know how she managed to get word out, but it's not the craziest thing she's said."

Markus didn't like to waste resources on personal projects, but this was the kind of news he could justify trusting. He sent a team out, snuck them on-site with a radio and got them to corner Erin's sister. She all but chirped on the radio that everything was just fine, that there was nothing at all to worry about, that she must've been drunk or high when she sent that last message. Markus was relieved and comforted; Erin was not.

"Did you hear her? That's not like her at all. There's something wrong."

"She said everything was fine."

"She _never_ talks like that. God damn it, Markus. Let me go out and see for myself."

"I can't spare another team. You can talk to this team when they get back. It'll make you feel better."

Except that the team was a day late, and then two, and there'd been no radio contact in a week.

 **  
Subjunctive**

 _Various languages use the subjunctive mood for different reasons. Sometimes it is used in discussing hypothetical or unlikely events, in expressing opinions or emotions, or when making polite requests_. _While most people use the indicative mood most frequently, I seem to live in the subjunctive. I suppose that's the lot of leadership._

"But what if it's _true_?" She was pacing in his office. They'd been spinning out scenarios one by one. He'd been trying to show her that there were so many things more likely -- bandits, car accident, injury, anything. She was not comforted.

"Occam's razor, Erin."

"I know my sister, Markus. Do you know how many times she's been polite to me? Maybe five. All of them before the Big Death. Do you know how likely it is she's turned over a new leaf? Zero. She's in trouble, Markus, she's in trouble _again_ , and I don't care what I swore before. I need to go and help her."

She stalked out of his office and Lee entered the moment she was out of sight. "I'll keep an eye on her."

Markus waved a hand. "Don't. She's not going to run off half-cocked." He frowned a little. "I do want to try to get contact back with this team, though. Send a scout. _Quietly_ , no truck. Best-case scenario, they meet halfway." He didn't want to talk about the worst-case scenario.

"And Lee? Let's put a team together to talk about nuclear materials, okay? We're going to have to start decommissioning things eventually."

Lee didn't like it, that was clear, but he never liked spending time on the unlikely. Markus, however, was more than ready. Occam's razor be damned.

 **  
Imperative**

 _The imperative mood expresses direct commands, requests, and prohibitions. In many circumstances, using the imperative mood may sound blunt or even rude, so it is often used with care. Example: "Jeremiah, don't go anywhere until I contact you". An imperative is used to tell someone to do something without argument, and is thus the most commonly ignored mood._

He'd have been upset if he hadn't really expected it. Kurdy denied any and all knowledge, but Jeremiah wouldn't have disappeared like that without him, or at least without consulting him. When Erin and Jeremiah and a Rover turned up missing, he knew something was afoot.

It wasn't the first time Jeremiah had directly disobeyed him -- in fact he could trust that disobedience like the sun or clockwork -- but this was new for Erin, and it gave Markus a little time to think. There was something different in Erin since she'd started talking to Jeremiah, getting close to him and spending days and nights working on things outside the compound.

Markus thought that it'd have made him jealous, but to date it'd only made him comfortable. There was something almost wonderful about the way Jeremiah was rubbing off on Erin. He could only help that Erin would start rubbing off on Jeremiah.

They could all use a little balance, and for the first time Markus was starting to see the balance between the two of them.

He'd always felt it between himself and Jeremiah, of course. Outside versus inside, abandon versus caution, the endless rough tongue against his own books and readings. No matter how much people questioned his orders, they'd always been obeyed in the past. For the first time, Markus had found someone who was easily his match, martially at least. He'd known it since the first time he'd laid eyes on the man.

He'd missed it with Erin, though. Missed her growing up, missed her growing wise. She'd been his other half since she'd found out about Meaghan, she'd been his conscience and his self-preservation. And now, she and Jeremiah were weighing in on the same end of the rope. He pulled Markus out of his shell; she helped him put on the right face. He riled up every wild plan Markus had ever come up with; she focused the plans, directed them.

The two of them together.... "dangerous," he muttered to himself. "And probably very, very good for me."

"Markus?" His radio crackled to life and he leaned forward to answer it.

"Yes?"

"You've got to get down here. Erin and Jeremiah just brought something in."

He closed his eyes, picturing it already. "Let me guess. They drove an unstable atomic weapon ninety miles in a truck with no shocks." He was glad no one could see him smile. "Make sure Lee knows. I'm on my way down."


	6. Non-finite Forms

**  
Infinitive**

 _The infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition of infinitive that applies to all languages._   
_The most infamous version of the infinitive is Hamlet's speech, of course, one oft quoted but rarely understood. What Hamlet says matters, yes, but he was an actor himself. He is a mad man acting mad, playing this game for the people who killed his father. I understand him deeply._

"There's no time for this." Markus wasn't really listening to Lee's little monologue, staring out past his desk and into the distance. He knew that what Lee was saying was important, and he trusted no one more with his safety, but ever since Daniel's forces had split up, ever since half of them had joined the Alliance something had settled under his skin.

He'd caused a war. A civil war. It wasn't really his doing in the end; things would have been different if Sims had survived, if there'd been another way to go, a better corner of leadership. Still, every casualty report hit him like it never had before. They were working to help the ones who'd sided with the Alliance as best as they could, but Lee's point was well taken. There was never enough time to help them as much as they'd liked. Denver to the East Coast was days in the best of times.

It'd sparked something in him. There was a problem no one was solving -- transportation, town to town. Jeremiah'd reminded him of Rachel's rail lines, and it'd given him a beautiful few days. Problems solved, timelines written. A way to change everything, to go back to steam if they had to.

But Lee was right, and that's why Markus was allowing this lecture. There really was no time for this.

He wanted, it, by god. It'd be so easy to push this point, to divert resources. It'd be a thumb in the eye of the ones still holding out on the coast, Daniel's founders. He wanted it, and he was three-quarters of the way to having it when Lee dropped another casualty report on his desk.

"You're right," he finally agreed, and Lee relaxed back into his chair. "Back burner."

 **  
Gerund**

 _A gerund is different in most languages, but it matches in English and Latin. It refers to the usage of a verb (in its -ing form) and as a noun. I am proud of my learning. Your dancing is beautiful._

Erin was frustrated on his behalf, and he loved her for it. She squabbled with Andrew and Lee in the council meetings, she brought him dinner on the late nights when she knew he was spending his free time on these trains. She radioed out to Rachel and convinced her to come back for another meeting, to bring maps and methods and teaching.

They even sent one of their engineers, though the Underground could spare little. His name was Jackson, and Kurdy knew him from ages ago. He wouldn't talk about how he got from Portland to Pittsburgh, but that wasn't a conversation anyone would expect him to have. He was a little gun-shy, twitching away from anyone even a barest inch taller than him, and the whole mountain made him nervous and miserable.

Markus watched him with Erin, watched them every day, and he couldn't help but feel a little lance of jealousy go through him. Maybe it wasn't his business, maybe it shouldn't matter to him, but it did. He was terribly glad when she came to him before he had to come to her.

"I watch him every day. His working... he's wonderful. But his suffering is affecting the whole team. He's a great guy," she told Markus, and he felt that cold stab again. "But he needs to go. Somewhere he can surround himself with his own people, be outside in the sun."

Markus nodded. "I know. I don't want you to be miserable either, Erin. Do you want to go with him?"

"Do I have a reason to stay?"

"You know we need you here, Erin. Everyone leans on you as much as they do me."

"That's not what I asked." She seemed to be searching for the right words. "Do you think some day you might... I want to dance with you again, Markus." He gave her a dubious look and she smiled. "You really weren't that bad."

"Let me... let me work on it." Her smile faded, but he shook his head. "I mean it. Give me a week. I have to balance some things." Duty couldn't be everything, after all.

 **  
Participle**

 _In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices (periphrasis), or as a modifier. A phrase composed of a participle and other words is a participial phrase. They solve problems -- they're a natural filler for a gap in most languages. I am, unsurprisingly, a fan of anything that's not one thing nor the other, a problem solver for an inherant problem._

Markus finally visited Mister Smith's school, months after he'd promised to. The women there were very kind to him, and the children very patient when they explained their schoolwork to him. It was a revelation to be surrounded by faster minds than his. For a brief moment, he had sympathy for his parents. Sympathy and empathy both.

"It was good of you to come," the headmistress served him tea -- real tea, grown up in a rather impressive greenhouse in the back -- and fixed her sharpest gaze on him. "But I don't think this was a social call."

He shook his head. Even she caught him out. He'd have to come back more often. "No. I have a proposition for you. There's a little problem I've been fiddling with, and it needs more than a good engineer. It needs a team of them. You met Jackson?"

She nodded. "He's a good soul. And the children seemed to love the books he brought with him."

"I'd like to station him here as a permanent liaison between my science teams and your students. He's smart enough to teach, stubborn enough he won't let me send too many problems your way, and he's a good project leader. Call it hands-on experience for your best students. I'll even make sure we cover his room and board."

She tilted her head. "I'm listening. What kind of projects would you send our way?"

He leaned forward in his seat, a little half smile in place. "I seem to remember most kids like trains."

When Markus left, Jackson stayed behind.

 **  
Supine**

 _In grammar a supine is a form of verbal noun used in some languages. English always has more in common with Latin than I think. We verb nouns, we noun verbs, and even if we don't technically have a supine form most kids use it every day. Supine has other definitions as well -- it's the way that most animals surrender, if they know how. Head low, belly up, throat exposed. That's where I am, I think, to all this circumstance. I loved Meaghan -- I love her even now -- but no matter how deeply I felt that, humans are not built to be alone. Not even heroes. Not even me. I know that she'd want me to be happy, and for the first time in a very long time I can see the path to that -- to something simple._

Erin had been very pleased to hear Jackson was happy and safe and busy -- she'd thanked Markus personally, talked him into a late-night tea and she'd even brought cookies. No chocolate, but they were sweet and soft and delicious. It was the end product of the latest in her long string of hobbies: baking. Personally, Markus hoped she kept this one up.

But while the cookies were delicious and the company was welcome, it was clear neither of them could forget that it was the day that his week was up. He'd promised her he'd make a decision, balance things and work them out. He'd managed some of it, but even now (after practicing his speech in the mirror a dozen times) he didn't even know where to begin.

They were both so distracted that the conversation was stiff and stilted, and he kept avoiding the topic that they knew both needed to be addressed. It took a while for him to work out what was wrong, why he couldn't warm up to the conversation and just say it. He caught her looking at him, and he saw it in her eyes. She was waiting for the no. She was waiting, and he still couldn't quite get it out.

Finally, though, they ran out of business, and he let the silence hang far too long before he took a breath to speak. "Erin. I need to explain something to you. Before I..." He backed up mentally, closed his eyes and started again.

"You know about Meaghan. You know more than most. She was... my first. My only girlfriend, if that's what you can call it. My first true love. Getting past it -- well, I haven't gotten past it yet. I probably never will. And all this week, I've been trying to decide if I really want what I think I do, or if I'm just lonely.

"I want to be very honest with you. I don't want you to ever feel like second place, like a consolation prize. And worse, I've been asking myself all the wrong questions this week. I've been treating this like I was the one who had to make the decision, but I want you to know that you do, too. There aren't a lot of things in this world that I don't understand. This... this is one of them."

Her eyes were a little wide when he met them, and he offered a little reassuring smile.

"I know how to have a relationship. I know how to love someone, I know how to be loyal and honest and care. But I only know how it works through glass. Everything else, you'd have to teach me. Holding hands and having dinner, all the way up through... everything."

She was quiet for a long minute, and then got up to stand in front of him, reach down and touch his jaw. Despite all his fussing, despite all his thinking, that moment when she touched him was when he knew. His love for Meaghan was deep and rich and full of something almost supernatural. Erin... it was different. It was simple and open, and it was absolutely love. It went both ways. "I've seen you with that textbook of yours," she said, quietly. "I have a feeling you'll be a very good student."

He leaned back, tilting up his face, letting her fingers stroke down his throat as he leaned back. "I don't know. I get distracted, you know. Every week or two, I lose track of where I am. I have to fight through it or start over, and I..." Her hand slid to the back of his neck, and he looked at her again. "I'm going to need a lot of... help."

She smiled just a little, shook her head and leaned in. "Lesson one. Sometimes, Markus, you talk too much." He opened his mouth to protest, and suddenly she was kissing him, hand on his cheek, slowly showing him just how it all could go. She kissed him like it was another way to breathe, and he was really starting to understand what all the fuss was about.

When she pulled back, she wouldn't let him say a word, just took his hands and pulled him up from his chair, pulled him close and wrapped her arms around and this time, she let _him_ kiss _her_.

And again. And again.


	7. Voices

_In grammar, the voice (also called diathesis) of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state) that the verb expresses and the participants identified by its arguments (subject, object, etc.). The voices in a language do seem to fundamentally affect the cognition of the speakers._   
_At the very least, it seems to be one of the most difficult things to intuit without experience._

 **  
Active**

 _When the subject is the agent or doer of the action, the verb is in the active voice. I have lived my life in the active voice, I think, for as long as I have been in control of Thunder Mountain. Now that I am stepping down, the future is somewhat uncertain._

He hadn't forgotten his promise. When he and Erin began their -- whatever it was -- it was an easy thing, but as it went on she made promises, and she made him promise in return. Big life decisions, she got a stake in. Ditto for him. Rules were rules.

That's why she was the first person he told. He called her into his office and closed the door, and let it out all in a rush, two short sentances that said everything. She looked at him as if he'd been speaking another language; after a moment, he realized he had been. "Sorry, I've been studying again."

"Latin?"

"What else? What I said was that I won't be running for office."

"Which one?" She was puzzled, turning over her clipboard in her hands. She'd clearly expected to wait for him, and her multitasking was legendary; he wasn't insulted in the slightest when she paused to make a note in a margin before looking up at him. "Wait, you mean any office, don't you? You won't be running _at all_?"

"No." He sat down -- next to her instead of across the table as usual -- and began to talk. For the first time in a long time, he felt the words trip out of him almost out of control; he couldn't stop them, could hardly take a breath between sentances. Everyone new elections were coming up, but he hadn't shared with anyone why he'd timed it just so. Now, he told her why, told her about the way everything was beginning to focus too much on him. The way a party of personality had never worked, the way he couldn't name a successor too obviously. The way he couldn't let himself take a break unless there was someone else he trusted in charge. The way he'd talked to Kurdy, the way he was going to suggest he run.

The way he wanted a house, and a fence, and the ability to sleep in until at least eight o'clock. In the beginning there had only been the mountain and the work and his people, but now the whole Alliance was flourishing. He told her how he wanted to feel the wind on his face, because it made him think of Meaghan. The way he wanted to know people were friends because they were, not because he was Markus Alexander.

"So you're leaving," she said, quietly, and he looked up to find her face closed down a little, covering disappointment. She was never shy about showing her own emotions, even when she thought she was being oh so careful. She knew that some day he'd have to go, even if only to put together a new seat of power, but it was so soon -- they'd only been together so long, and though they rarely spent a night outside each other's company it still felt new.

"I am." He held up a hand to keep her from answering, then reached out to rest fingers on her wrist. "But there's something else."

And he was off again and talking, voice just a little hoarse. He told her about trust, given and taken, about the way he needed the people who pushed him. About how he wouldn't let himself be alone, about how he had to do what he had to do, but that didn't mean he was going to do it alone. About how he wanted a house full of half-finished projects and books propped open, about how he could never bear to make his own clutter but how he loved to be surrounded by it. About a house, five miles east of Milhaven, with just enough room for two, one real bedroom if you left a room for a guest.

He wanted what his parents had. He wanted to be loved, he wanted to love in return. He wanted mess and arguments and dirty socks and bad tea. He wanted jokes about insecure passwords, so many books there weren't shelves for them all. He wanted to plan in the hypothetical. He wanted a hobby. He wanted to be alone. And, more than that, he wanted someone to be alone with.

"You don't have to come now," he said, not daring to look up. "But I'd like to hear you promise. If you will."

He took something out of his pocket, put it on the table and pushed it towards her. The stone on the ring caught the light for just a second, and he could feel her holding her breath. "It was my mother's," he said. "It doesn't mean what it used to."

She picked it up, turned it over, rubbed her thumb along the gold and then slipped it on. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it was close enough. "It can," she offered, quietly. "If you want it to."

 **Passive**

 _When the subject is the patient, target or undergoer of the action, it is said to be in the passive voice. Some people in the past railed against the excessive use of the passive voice. I have to wonder what they'd think about the absolute lack of it in modern life. Nothing is done to anyone, anymore. Everything is simply done. I am done. Retired at thirty-five. My father would be jealous._

He wasn't sure how he felt when Jeremiah didn't turn up at the little retirement party they'd thrown. Markus had absolutely expected him, the way he expected the sun to rise and Lee to be an ass. Jeremiah'd been there so consistently for the past years that having him absent was peculiar.

Of course, it turned out that Jeremiah had wanted to be there. It was just that on his way home, he'd run into some kind of cultish enclave, and they'd taken him hostage. Markus didn't hear about it until a good week afterwards, not until Jeremiah turned up on his doorstep and invited himself in. Broke in, more like, fiddled the lock, flopped down and bled all over his couch. Markus found him early in the morning, sleeping it all off.

It may have been O'dark-thirty in the morning, but that didn't mean this kind of thing didn't call for whiskey. Moonshine, at least, potent as it came, and by the time he'd knocked back the first glass Jeremiah was awake and reaching for the bottle.

By the third glass they were hip to hip, knee to knee on the couch together; by the fifth Jeremiah'd been through the shower and back; by the seventh they were finally talking while Markus rebandaged Jeremiah's wounds. The whole story came out, and Markus couldn't resist needling him about his seeming ability to find trouble under every stone. Jeremiah pointed out that it was Markus who'd been sending him around kicking the stones. They smirked at each other, voices low and tones easy as they bantered, and inch by inch they let themselves get closer. The first kiss always caught them by surprise, but the second one was always perfect.

They didn't have to talk. That wasn't their way. And while Erin knew, while everyone did, really, Markus was glad she was still up at Thunder Mountain. Erin knew, and she practically approved; he knew she'd had her moments with Jeremiah, and for all he knew she still did. He couldn't bring himself to mind it at all. Sometimes, you just knew what was good for you, even if you weren't sure why.

Markus didn't know what it was they had, any of them, but it wasn't something altogether romantic. It was just easy, the way you always knew how to talk to someone who'd been through the same war.

Maybe that's what it was with Jeremiah -- they'd lost their families to the government, their loves to the wars, their focus to misery. Pain shared was pain divided, and that's what they did when they came together. They shared it again and again, something smooth and lazy and absolutely without regrets. It kept them up most of the night, but by the time they were asleep again, this time in Markus's bed, some kind of emptiness had lifted from the air and from their minds.

They woke up around noon, and Erin was puttering around the kitchen downstairs; he could smell something baking and hear the music she liked to play filtering up through the vents. Markus idly reached out to make sure his lover was still there, tracing a palm along his shoulder before turning over to sleep again.

"I can't believe you got Kurdy to run for president." Jeremiah's voice was muffled but he was clearly wide awake; he turned over and propped his head on the pillow.

Markus almost smiled and sighed out the smallest of laughs. "I'm even going to vote for him."

"Yeah? No wonder he's pissed."

They both grinned easily, and Markus only let himself have one more moment of enjoying the quiet before he tried to roll out of bed. He didn't get far before Jeremiah grabbed his wrist to stop him. "It's Sunday," Jeremiah protested, and Markus let himself be more or less manhandled back under the covers.

"Hm. Five more minutes," he agreed.

"Ten."

"Ten unless we smell bacon."

"Done."


	8. Irregulars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The journal of Markus Alexander: final entry.

_No matter how much you think you know about someone, no matter how much you think you know about a language, there is always one more irregular thing to learn. Something you wouldn't expect, something you never could have known if you hadn't been told. That's the way my whole life has been -- there's always one more irregular thing to learn. Jeremiah knew about Erin long before I thought he did; she knew about him from the beginning. And we haven't managed to talk about it, but I know about them._

 _I don't quite know how to handle this. There are nights when I have neither; there are nights when I want both. There are nights when I read Meaghan's journal, and that's more than enough for me._

 _I miss her, more than words can say, and I still regret that I didn't risk just one touch to her skin or her hair. It's an empty place that will never be filled. But if wishes were horses, et hoc genus omne. She'd laugh if she knew that I was being so melodramatic._

 _I'm trying, by God, I'm trying, and I know she would approve. She always used to tell me that I shouldn't wait for her. I know she loved that I did, that she loved me and wanted me for her own, but I know just as well that she wanted me to be happy, and I think I just might be. A capite ad calcem, Meaghan, I swear._

 _I have Erin in the days, in public and in the sun. Now that I am no longer the leader, that I've moved on to smaller projects and easier schedules, I can have her. Now that I don't have to worry about what might look inappropriate, we can have each other. I don't have to worry about what the rumors will do to her. I have time to plan my own life, to take care of myself above the lives of thousands, and she's there, all the way to the end._

 _I have Jeremiah in the nights, for times when he misses Libby and I miss Meaghan and we couldn't be with anyone who didn't understand grief that way. There are silences and scotch, and we both have dreams so sweet that turn into nightmares on waking. Even a touch is torture when you know you have to wake to a world devoid of that face, those eyes. We have an understanding, and more than that we have a comfort._

 _They have each other for adventures I don't fully understand. I've never been on the road and never wanted to be, but she loves it and he wouldn't be home anywhere else. I don't ask what they do out there, but when they come home to me I know. It doesn't make me jealous and it doesn't feel wrong. It is what it is -- and though it isn't mos maiorum it is right by our own little code._

 _I've had them both at Christmas, and that was something I'm not sure I'm ready to contemplate, something just a little bit right, something a little bit strange. I have got to hide the whiskey when Jeremiah is around -- or perhaps I should make sure to have a bottle, every time. I haven't decided, and I don't think I need to. We have time enough to puzzle it out in pieces -- though Erin did mention my birthday was coming with a certain look in her eye._

 _I don't worry about the future, though. I have a house, now, rooms with windows that open and doors made of wood, not steel. I can see the mountain where I was born. I buy my food, I earn my keep, and I sleep through the night. And I think it's safe to say that at last, long last, I am fluent in Latin._

 _I brought those textbooks down from the mountain with me, but there was something wrong with seeing them on the shelf. Each one belonged to someone else's life, a different someone else. The Markus of fourteen, prying open passwords and doing what he could to stay alive. The Markus that belonged to Meaghan alone, the leader in his own tomb, under the earth and better for it. The Markus of the outside world, the one who showed his face and incidentally became a great dux bellorum. Each one was someone I'm not._

 _Each one was someone I'm not. I'm no longer Markus Alexander, said with all due emphasis on the capital letters. I am just Markus Alexander, a man with a home and a family. So I took those books, and I buried them in the back garden. There's a small marker for them, and if you didn't know better you'd think I lost a beloved pet._

 _And now, ah, now, I find myself on the last page of this journal._

 _I won't bury this -- there is too much here that might be historical -- but I will say a few words to anyone who might read it once I'm long dead. I am not a remarkable man, no matter what people might believe. That's why, in the end, I succeeded._

 _I want people to know that this was the era when cedant arma togae, when words defeated armies. I don't want to think that the death of six billion people was the condicio sine qua non for a peaceful world; they may have gotten wiser in their time, but sometimes I think it takes tragedy to bring joy. It was true for me, in the end. Et lux in tenebris lucet. Et gaudium sumet in tribulatione._

 _And now, that I've finished showing off, I am going to be an unremarkable man who is about to have dinner with his wife and our lover. I hear one made apple cobbler and one brought a bottle of wine. By god, I hope my wife is the one who baked._


End file.
